Cheap Six Feet Under - The Complete Fifth Season (DVD) (Kathy Bates, Alan Ball, Alan Taylor, Daniel Attias) Price

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Customer Reviews of Six Feet Under - The Complete Fifth Season

Feeling Nostalgic...
SFU was without a doubt the most intelligent show I've ever had the pleasure of watching each week. And I feel an extreme absence with it off the air, even all these months later. <
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>Following Nate, Brenda, Claire (and all the characters) was truly like spending time with family and friends. And this final season really did deliver everything the series promised from the very fair airing of the series premiere. <
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>A "must watch" show for anyone wanting powerful, emotional and extremely well written television viewing. Highly recommended! <
>Deidre Knight

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And all good things come to an end. Warning - a spoiler or two may follow...
Not having HBO, I came into Six Feet Under late, while I was a district manager for a small, local chain of video stores, after the hearty endorsement of several good customers. Taking their word, I rented and watched the entire first season with my girlfriend over a long weekend getaway. <
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>I don't know if we'd have felt the same way about the show, having to watch each episode play out over the course of an entire season, as opposed to being able to watch a season at a time on DVD, one after another; therefore keeping each show fresh in our minds. But needless to say, we were hooked, and we've burned through the first four seasons in less than a year. <
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>Six Feet Under might never be regarded as classic television, but I've been affected by it, despite a noted dip in quality this last couple years, as the show often devolved into soap opera-ish clich�'s, where often every scene seemed to consist of tantrums and fights and bed-hopping instead of digging into the heart of the Fisher family and the themes that were so central to the shows early success: the cycle of birth, life, and death, and the Fisher's (and in effect, our culture's) attitudes towards them. <
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>Fortunately even during the low points there was plenty to keep us hooked: Nate and Brenda and their co-dependency and completely dysfunctional familial relationships; David and Keith, possibly the deepest, best written homosexual roles ever in a mainstream television series (or film, for that matter); Ruth, and all of her relationship woes, especially with second husband George; and finally Claire, and her slow coming of age. More often than not, bits and pieces of each episode have stayed with me, playing in my mind, often days after watching them. <
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>Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. And for better or worse we've come to the fifth and final season of this crazy, intimate little show about a family of funeral directors. <
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>The first thing that struck me while watching season five was that the show seemed to suddenly get back on track, even while the annoying character traits (all the constant bickering and quick-sex-fixes-everything mentality) were still present. And as the series began to wind down and on-going plot lines were tied up, I began to realize how much these goofy characters had grown to mean to me. If you can consider fictional people family, well, with all their exaggerated faults and foibles, these folks were darn close. <
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>So what comes around goes around. Creator/producer Alan Ball returns to write and direct the last episode of his brainchild. <
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>Without spoiling too much here (apologies to those of you who are haven't yet finished!), after Nate's death, I was glad to see the entire family finally come together: to see Ruth grieve and then heal after the loss of her favored son, become the nurturing matriarch of the Fisher family, and then ease into her own life apart from her children; to see David finally come to grips with his own inner demons (figuratively and literally) and settle in with a family of his own; to see Rico and Vanessa reconcile, then break away from the Fishers for a new beginning; and again, Claire, as she finally began to grow up and move away from the safety of the family roost and out into the big, bright world. <
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>After watching this last show, I was left drained mentally and emotionally, but wondering if maybe everything hadn't been wrapped up just a bit too neatly - Claire saying her goodbyes and driving off into the great unknown could have been enough, but mixing in the montage of everyone meeting their eventual ends left me a little put-off, even while keeping with the continuity of the show's birth-to-death premise. <
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>However, all that being said, it's strange enough for a TV show to make me laugh out loud, much less run an emotional rollercoaster for six months, err, five seasons. I'll miss this nutty family of morticians - those long weekends at the cabin just won't be the same without them to keep us company. <
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>So, thanks, Mr. Ball: If only more television could be like this.

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EVERYONE'S WAITING:
Everyone's waiting to die, which is a simple fact of life. Through it all, it's how much love you give and receive that really matters. Then, when there is a lot of love given, the terror of death is softened and takes on the persona of a really good life. Specifically, relative to this story, everyone's waiting to begin "the first day of the rest of their lives." Nate's death galvanized the family and forced strength, unity, and love where it had not been before. <
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>Some complained that the finale is maudlin. I'm not sure if that word is apt to describe the event, although the episode made me feel like a "person" who hangs onto a soap opera for existence, and I was tense all through the final episode. <
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>Unlike the typical episodes in previous seasons, the series finale was more sentimental than usual, but considering this is the finale, and there will be no more, it is appropriate that plots are not very well developed, and there is reliance on past issues: <
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>�Ruth cried nearly every minute <
>�Brenda continued being tense and apprehensive <
>�Claire was cagey, vulnerable, optimistic, symbolic of youth <
>�David inched along positively, becoming more-and-more mature <
>�Keith was sage and . . . divine, very much the father figure. <
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>However, the montage ending was well worth the wait in that it is satisfying, passionate, . . . as melodramatic as a full life should be, and unforgettable. If only I can live and die so well. <
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